Sea Fever

Siobhan, a scientist studying faunal behavioral patterns, purchases a place on the fishing trawler the Niamh Cinn-Oir, manned by a crew of six: skipper Gerard, his wife Freya, ship's engineer Omid, Johnny, Ciara, and Sudi. As they set off, they are warned by the Coast Guard that there is an exclusion zone near their route, which Gerard, unbeknownst to the others, takes them into. As they travel through the zone, they run into an unknown, shoal-like object which stops the boat. Meanwhile Omid discovers strange breaches in the hull which protrude a blue-green slime. The crew suspects barnacles, and as Siobhan possesses the only diving gear onboard, Gerard sends her armed with a knife to cut the boat free. Underwater, she discovers tendril-like appendages of an enormous organism adhering to the boat. Thinking it may be a newly-discovered form of giant squid, the crew attempt to capture it with their net, but it proves too heavy. While releasing the net, Johnny cuts his hand on the rope.

Seeing another boat nearby, Gerard, Johnny, and Siobhan board it using a rowboat, only to discover the entire crew dead from suicide inside the cabin, with one of the men having his eyes ostensibly scooped out. They return, with Gerard instructing the others not to speak of it, calling it "sea fever" and insisting the other crew merely went mad. That night, Johnny begins to exhibit uncharacteristic behavior, including wanting to go for a swim. Suspecting a fever, Siobhan performs a medical diagnosis on him and discovers movement in his retinas. As he is washing his face, he suddenly goes blind and his eyes burst, releasing minuscule organisms. Siobhan realizes they are parasites that were attempting to go into the water, and the crew rushes to save Sudi, who is taking a shower. Sudi suffers numerous cuts over his body as the waterborne creatures bite him, and Johnny dies from his injuries.

Siobhan theorizes that the underwater creature, mistaking the trawler for a whale, latched onto the boat to inject its larvae in the form of the slime. Johnny, who had a cut on his hand, was infected by the parasitic creatures, and the rest of the crew are also at risk. The crew check their water filtration system and find that their entire water supply has been contaminated. As the creatures are a hadopelagic species, Siobhan theorizes intense UV light may harm it and they attempt to use it to kill the microscopic eggs in the slime. When that fails, they instead electrocute the trawler using the ship's arc welder, successfully sterilizing the boat and preventing further infection. However, this does not preclude the chance that they may have already been infected, and Siobhan insists they self-quarantine on the trawler for a further 36 hours before returning to shore. When Sudi dies from the infection, Siobhan disables the trawler by entangling the propeller.

The crew diagnose themselves by checking their eyes for the parasites, and Siobhan, Omid, Freya, and Ciara ostensibly check out. Gerard however, is proven to be infected, and after a heartfelt goodbye Freya mercy kills him by slicing his throat. Ciara goes insane and attacks Siobhan, only to fall to her death. As she dies, a parasite emerges from her eye, revealing her to have been infected. Now with only Freya, Siobhan, and Omid remaining, Freya decides to take the rowboat to shore to double their chances of being found. Siobhan and Omid discover that the mass of larvae in the ship's water tank have instead now been replaced by a single cannibal creature, which eats through the ship's hull to return to the ocean, causing the trawler to take water and sink. They use spirits to ignite a fire on the Niamh Cinn-Oir and then abandon it on the inflatable boat, but Omid falls overboard and is seized by the adult creature. Siobhan rescues him, but cuts her bare hand on the creature's tendril, becoming infected. As a rescue helicopter approaches, Siobhan dives into the water, swimming towards the bioluminescent creature.

• Connie Nielsen as Freya[1]
• Hermione Corfield as Siobhán[1]
• Dougray Scott as Gerard[1]
• Olwen Fouéré as Ciara[1]
• Jack Hickey as Johnny
• Ardalan Esmaili as Omid[1]
• Elie Bouakaze as Sudi

Actress Toni Collette was originally chosen for the lead role.[2] However, scheduling issues meant she became unavailable, and she was replaced by Connie Nielsen.[3][4]

Sea Fever premiered at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival on 5 September 2019.[5]

On 9 April 2020, the film was made available for viewing via an online live stream hosted by distributor Gunpowder & Sky's label DUST.[6] The film was intended to receive a theatrical release on 10 April 2020, but instead was released on VOD on that date in the United States.[6][7] It is scheduled to be released on VOD in the United Kingdom on 24 April 2020.[7]

Sea Fever has received generally positive reviews, with several critics drawing comparisons between the film's plot and the COVID-19 pandemic.[8][9][10] On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 86% based on 91 reviews, with an average rating of 6.79/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "If Sea Fever never quite heats up as much as it could, it remains an engrossing, well-acted sci-fi thriller with effective horror elements."[11] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 60 out of 100, based on 21 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[12]

David Fear of Rolling Stone gave the film three-and-a-half out of five stars, writing that, "amid the claustrophobic compositions and shadowy hallways and tick-tick-tick of inevitable sickness, Sea Fever goes from being a monster movie to an eerily timed example of pandemic horror."[9] Noel Murray of the Los Angeles Times noted that, when the film premiered at TIFF, "many viewers read [it] as a metaphor for climate change [...] Nowadays, the lessons in this imaginative and gripping film seem to have multiple applications."[13] Benjamin Lee of The Guardian awarded the film three out of five stars, calling it "a low-budget effort with high ambitions, something that's hard not to admire".[7] Katie Rife of The A.V. Club gave Sea Fever a grade of "B", writing that, "while the film puts its influences way out front, its impressive execution makes it well worth the 89 minutes."[14]

A. A. Dowd of The A.V. Club gave the film a "B-", writing that "Sea Fever tackles [its premise] with almost too much restraint [...] All the same, there's no denying that the movie eventually reaches a confrontation of disturbing relevance."[8] Devika Girish of The New York Times wrote that the film "seems unsure about its own shape, switching indecisively between creature feature, epidemic thriller and environmental drama without articulating any meaty ideas."[10] Tomris Laffly of RogerEbert.com gave the film two out of four stars, concluding: "You'll leave Hardiman's deck wondering why you aren't more rattled, or even seasick, while hoping for another genre flick from the clearly skilled director soon. Perhaps one that anchors into a deeper story this time."[15]

• Official website
• Sea Fever on IMDb
• Sea Fever at Rotten Tomatoes